LAMBRIGHT: In the NFL lockout, side with responsibility
The NFL has recently shut down their massive money-making enterprise.
When disputes like this happen in major sports organizations, people have a tendency to side with the players. Maybe this is not always for the best.
The lockout looks like it might last into the next season — unless the players and owners can come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement.
The billion-dollar money machine that is professional sports is a machine powered by stars.
In exchange for their services, those stars demand multi-million dollar contracts. The owners pay those contracts because those stars sell jerseys, bobblehead dolls, hot dogs, $12 beers and — of course — tickets.
Whenever we see billionaires fighting with millionaires, we tend to side with the millionaires. After all, how can men with so much money possibly quibble over how to divide up the NEXT billion dollars they will make?
I want to answer that question with a question. Why don’t the players start their own league?
They are the larger than life personalities. They bring in the fans. They’re who we follow week-to-week in our fantasy leagues. So why not pack up and start a new league?
Because it’s the owners and their shrewd business sense that has made the NFL the most popular professional sports league in America. It is the owners that deserve to reap the benefits.
Not since the 1960’s has there been an underpaid NFL player. Yet, according to Sports Illustrated, an astounding 78 percent of NFL players go broke or experience serious financial trouble within two years of leaving the league.
Two. Years. That’s two years after making at minimum $300,000 dollars a year.
Now let’s look at the lockout a different way: A majority of men who do not take care of their money versus men who do an impeccable job taking care of their money.
No matter what happens with the new collective bargaining agreement the players are going to get larger and larger salaries — even on the Detroit Lions.
The future of the league will go where the majority of the money goes and, as a football fan, I want the men who can take care of their finances taking care of professional football.
